Excellent read. Thank you for posting those links.

I personally recall speaking with Janet Baker, after-the-fact, at the Boston Dragon reseller meeting. My question to Janet was specifically “How well did you check out L & H’s accounting practices. The reason why I am asking you this question is because L & H claims that they sold something in the vicinity of $250 million worth of L & H speech recognition software to North Korea, a country that not only doesn't have computers but doesn't even have electricity”. Janet politely told me that they knew what they were doing. It was only 24 hours later when the FCC announced an investigative probe into the L & H claims and you know the rest of the story.

-------------------------

Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

Lunis,

It wasn't North Korea. It was South Korea. Selling computers and computer software to North Korea is and was illegal and they would have gotten caught much sooner if it had been North Korea on the radar screen. Lernout & Hauspie & Gaston Bastiens were pulling fishy tricks long before that anyway over in Belgium. Regardless, it was South Korea. And, that's where and why they got caught. They didn't get caught for what they did in Belgium until after the Korean affair while under scrutiny by the SEC after the initial screwup, but that was just as bad, just not readily obvious. Nevertheless, these guys weren't stupid, they were just greedy (i.e., crooks if you like). What's really interesting is that in its heyday, L&H had $600,000,000 in cash assets, they had a booth for Comdex that was as big as Microsoft's and cost over $3,000,000, they got both Intel and Microsoft to infuse the company with $150,000,000 each in return for access to software licensing and other services, and, in general, working for L&H was an incredibly amazing experience having watched it grow from $6 a share on NASDAQ in 1997 to over $120 a share in 2000 followed by a 2-for-1 stock split. We thought we were on easy street (seventh heaven literally) because our retirement accounts were based on shares of stock. I went from $0 to $75,000 in my 401(k) based on shares of stock and the stock price at the time in less than two years between 1998 and 2000. All at went down the crapper pretty fast for me and about 28,000+ other L&H employees when all the smoke finally cleared.

Lindsay,

It wasn't just the Baker's that took a beating. Everybody at L&H lost a lot because of these three folks, who were charged, convicted, and served time in jail in Belgium, not to mention the fact that they paid a pretty hefty fine, which basically involved giving up all of their assets (personal). All 30,000 L&H employees in Europe and the US lost their 401(k) investments. I personally lost over $75,000, which I will never recover. In addition, instead of having the money to outsource projects like marketing materials and CD production, we ended up doing everything in-house, which took twice as long and was that much more complicated. Some of us were lucky enough to make it through the entire process up to the acquisition by ScanSoft. However, many many good people lost their jobs in January of 2001 because of this entire debacle.

L&H treated their employees very well and we were all family. It was that type of company at the grassroots. Everybody knew everybody else. Nobody was considered an outsider and the general respect for employees and customers was the highest that I've ever seen it in any company. We worked hard and we played hard. L&H used to send me all over the country giving demonstrations for user groups, all expenses paid upfront; including first class accommodations, top-of-the-line car rentals, and flying first class. They sent me to Hong Kong, Singapore, London and numerous places in Europe to give demonstrations. I was one of the primary demonstrators at Comdex and was in charge of all the other demonstration booths. The moment that everything started going down the crapper, that all stopped and we ended up having to pay our own expenses for any business-related travel and thoroughly justify it before we were reimbursed. Any business travel had to be approved all the way up to the interim CEOs (i.e., Gaston Bastiens was fired the moment that this issue came to the front and he was replaced by two interim CEOs, one from outside the company and one from Dictaphone, who tried to save the company). In its heyday, L&H was the best place to work in the software industry. None of us on the low end of the food chain were ever absolutely aware of what was going on. The only thing that was communicated to us was that we were in deep shit. After Gaston Bastiens, and all the upper-level management was terminated, there were a lot of good people who tried to do the best they could to save the company.

The articles that you put up for review don't reflect the total experience. They only scratch the surface. There's more to the story than anyone who was not inside the company at the time will ever know or even understand. One other thing is that it is not clear in all of this is the fact that one of the reasons Dragon Systems was acquired by L&H was that they were about to go bankrupt with no option for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It may have been a lousy deal and the people responsible for what happened Ought to be held accountable, but Jim and Janet Baker were not good managers and that's what led up to the whole acquisition process.

In addition, somebody on this forum posited the question of whether or not there would have been any improvements in DNS had the Baker's remained and L&H remained as a company. The answer is no there would not have been. The senior director of program development today for Nuance is the same person who was the senior director of program development back then. The only difference was that Joel Gould left in February of 2001 because of a conflict, as already noted in a previous post. There are a lot of new faces in the development arena at Nuance today, but the principles involved in the development of Dragon NaturallySpeaking over the last many years are still the same. The Baker's were never involved in the development side of Dragon NaturallySpeaking after the acquisition. Unfortunately, they were only figureheads after May of 2000. They were not involved in the development side after that point.

The bottom line is don't go reading too much into what has been discussed so far because you had to be there in order to understand the full picture. I lost a lot of good friends and the ability to work closely with some very good people as a result of all this. So, I totally agree with where the blame lies, but not everything about the L&H story is negative. I think it's important to keep that in mind because I was there during this whole period and my perspective was from the inside. We saw what was happening to us and the full story only came out after it was all over. Nevertheless, what you're reading about now is only part of the story and only a small part at that.

Chuck

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups" - Unknown

-------------------------

Thank you, Chuck, for sharing from your memories about this debacle. As I am both an attorney and CPA, I'd love to question you a lot more to flesh out the picture but will refrain as I think we know as much as we need to now - and that is pretty dark enough.

I can imagine it is painful to recall what happened after you poured so much of yourself into the company. I really appreciate how you help so many in this forum and also with VP because your experience with Dragon through the years. Your participation is invaluable as are your insights, even as in this case. Thank you, sir.

-------------------------

DNS 12.5 Pro, Win7, i7-3770K @ 3.7GHz, 16 Gb, 256 Gb SSD Boot drive, 3-in-1 TableMike - KnowBrainer 12 - Thanks so much, Lunis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They should make a movie of this!

-------------------------

Intel Pent D 930 Dual Core Proc 3.0 GHz, 4MB L2 Cache on a Intel Desktop Board D945PVS 800MHz FSB, 4GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2), 150 GB, 10K RPM, 16 MB Cache - WD Raptor SATA HD, Win XP Pro Ver 2002 SP3 32-bit, Andrea USB Soundpod, Sennheiser ME 3, DNS Pro 11.5 using BestMatch III.

I had the pleasure of practicing law in Massachusetts for going on 15 years. I read the judge's Memorandum and Order, and I noted that the allegation concerning unfair and deceptive business practices survived the motion to dismiss; if things go as I expect them to at trial, this is going to cost Goldman Sachs big-time, double or treble damages, plus paying the Bakers' attorney fees. Do the math; if Dragon Systems was worth $600 million going into this fiasco, and the Bakers lost it all, with interest and attorney fees, this could end up costing Goldman Sachs well over $1 billion. This couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys!

Regarding the comment that the Bakers were not the savviest business managers, that really doesn't change anything. As frequently happens, the inventors and entrepreneurs who create and launch businesses are frequently incapable of managing those businesses once they become going concerns. That argument is certainly no defense against what Goldman Sachs is alleged to have done to the Bakers and to their company.

-------------------------
Art Silen

artsilen@sbcglobal.net; art.silen.mediator@gmail.com  

"Question assumptions"

DSN 11.5, running on Win7;Intel Core i7 CPU 970 @3.20 GHz; System Memory 12 GB; Graphic AMD Radcon HD6570; System Board 2A861.04E01; System Bios 6.15

 

This is a really fascinating story. In particular, it will be fascinating to observe in due course how this litigation will develop. Invariably, I suspect whatever the outcome at this instance will be appealed, with the only winners being the attorneys on both sides. Reed Smith LLP some years ago were charging $900 an hour for a partner; so one can only begin to contemplate the legal costs associated with this litigation.

Perhaps those who are admitted to practice law in the United States would care to enlighten those of us on this side of the Atlantic, whether conditional fees are permitted in a case such as this; if it would be fair to assume that this is being underwritten by a specialist legal insurer; and/or Reed Smith are permitted to take a percentage of any damages awarded, once the case has been settled.

Rightly or wrongly, many people legitimately feel a very strong sense of disapprobation towards Goldman Sachs. Obviously, this case will be followed with very close attention by some members of the KnowBrainer Forum, so it will be interesting to see what the determination of the facts are in due course.

 

-------------------------
DNS 12.0 Professional, Windows 7, Intel Core i7 2630QM, 16GB of RAM. Second-Generation SpeechWare 6-in-1.

Great post Lindsay. It's hard to criticize the all stock buyout since that was a different era. The article glosses over the board of directors meeting but someone must have objected to such a deal in light of the memo and whatnot. Seems there were failures on so many levels to do diligence. A tragedy really for Janet and Jim. The money is one thing but giving up their 'third child' must have been, and probably still is, heart wrenching. Hopefully justice will prevail.

Goes to show how important it is to vet these types of offers. There are a lot of crooks and rats in the world that it pays to do diligence yourself. Good lawyers are worth every penny, imo. I hope the Bakers get the damages for breach of contract that they deserve.

Max Roth
ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

Max,

Please read my post carefully. You folks are on the outside looking in after many years. There are only three members of this forum who were on the inside at the time; Lunis, myself, and one other who shall remain nameless because they are still associated with Nuance. There is a lot more behind the scenes than is noted in the information available currently.

Yes, the Baker's got screwed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it and I hope they get their day in court, but it still hasn't gone to trial and the original suit was filed in September of 2009. That's almost 3 years ago. Also, it wasn't an acquisition and it was in a hostile takeover. It was a merger by mutual agreement on the part of the Baker's and L&H because Dragon Systems was about to be delisted from NASDAQ (the price of Dragon Systems shares at that time was less than $1 at that time, they were heavily in debt, and I'm sure that to them it seemed like the best thing at the moment. They did get some extremely bad and questionable advice, and I agree that on that basis alone they are entitled to pursue appropriate litigation. However, hindsight is always 20/20 and there is still a lot more to the sequence of events than simply what has been presented at this point. Those of us in the trenches were very pleased to join forces with Dragon Systems and work with their folks to really make speech recognition better. We had no idea what was going on in the boardrooms or the back offices and we didn't see it in that light at that time. There was no hostility whatsoever between L&H employees and Dragon system employees. Everybody from Dragon Systems was welcomed by all of us with open arms. And, because Dragon Systems itself was a relatively small company, no one was excised, laid off, or fired.

Be careful about the assumptions that you draw based on the information presented by Lindsay. There is still a lot of discovery to be presented to the court and some of it is not all in the favor of Jim and Janet Baker. Having been the SDK Program Manager for both L&H VoiceXpress and Dragon NaturallySpeaking during that entire period of time before and after, as well as up to the end, I'm able to look at it from both sides. What happened to the Baker's was a tragedy, but what happened to the 28,000+ other employees of L&H at the time, including myself, was just as tragic and we will never get compensation for it. If they ever make a movie of this, as was suggested in one of the threads in this post, it should be entitled The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 2.

Part of the tragedy was the fact that had Dragon Systems gone bankrupt, somebody would've been able to pick them up for a song (very likely L&H at a much cheaper price), but had it not occurred at all, which seemed a very likely at the time, there would not be a Dragon NaturallySpeaking product on the market today and speech recognition would've taken a significant hit. In the long run, it's only because L&H was able to release DNS 6.0 in November of 2001 that Dragon NaturallySpeaking exists to this day, like it or not. The bottom line is that there is more to the story than what you see on its face. An awful lot of very good, very hard-working people worked overtime, often until midnight many nights, to try to pick up the pieces and make it work. It was only the callous and greedy few in the penthouse that ought to be noted and condemned.

When making judgments about this whole fiasco, keep in mind that you weren't there (i.e., that's a collective "you" not directed at you specifically).

Chuck

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." -- Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

-------------------------

Chucker,

Do I understand you correctly? Are you saying if Dragon Systems was not bought by L&H then the speech recognition software we use today would be in a lot worse shape?

-------------------------

Intel Pent D 930 Dual Core Proc 3.0 GHz, 4MB L2 Cache on a Intel Desktop Board D945PVS 800MHz FSB, 4GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2), 150 GB, 10K RPM, 16 MB Cache - WD Raptor SATA HD, Win XP Pro Ver 2002 SP3 32-bit, Andrea USB Soundpod, Sennheiser ME 3, DNS Pro 11.5 using BestMatch III.

Roger,

Given this state of affairs at that point in time, it's quite possible that speech recognition might have died as a consumer (retail) product.

One of the things that is important to understand is that the climate in the software industry relative to speech recognition apps was very negative as far as the average consumer was concerned. Too much marketing hype (e.g., IBM ViaVoice – You talk, it types, L&H VoiceXpress – fluent in five minutes, etc.). Sales of Dragon NaturallySpeaking and L&H VoiceXpress were on the slide. No one was to sure what was going to happen. It's quite possible that we could have ended up with nothing. There was little satisfaction with the current state-of-the-art at that point. Companies like CompUSA were beginning to return product because they couldn't sell it. Accuracy and performance were poor for both DNS and L&H VoiceXpress. Dragon Systems was definitely on the way out the door to the same degree, but for different reasons, than L&H. PC Magazine, PC World, and other major publications of that type at the time were basically panning speech recognition. Nobody was to sure where anything was going. Quarterdeck Corp., with whom I was also employed up to 1997, went belly up ending up at the point where it shares of stock were $.25 a share. They were Delisted on NASDAQ and the entire company was dissolved. Only by virtue of Symantec picking up some of their products were any remnants of Quarterdeck, which was at one point leader of the pack in terms of memory management and other products which were termed the "IT" products (Help-It, Zip-It, Partition-It, etc.). There were a lot of jokes about Quarterdeck at the time such as that it had become a "two bit" company, and someone in Quarterdeck even developed a box shot mimicking Quarterdeck's software boxes and called "Fire-It", which represented how the employees felt they were treated. Interestingly enough, the handwriting should've been on the wall at that time because the CEO of Quarterdeck was Gaston Bastiens, who left Quarterdeck for L&H. Nonetheless, the entire software industry was in a period of negative flux and everything was up in the air. Sales of speech recognition applications were on a significant downhill slide. Therefore, it's very possible that at that point in time nobody would have been willing to pick up Dragon Systems or L&H. It was only the release of DNS 6.0, which began to have better success, because of a change in marketing strategy, that ScanSoft even became interested in acquiring the Dragon assets.

Therefore, the answer to your question is that, given the environment in the software industry at the time and particularly relative to speech recognition, it's very possible that the speech recognition application that you use today (i.e., Dragon) wouldn't even exist let alone having arrived at its current level of technological advances. The only reason that Microsoft became interested in Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) was because they saw an opening and they had already, long ago, purchased licensing from L&H that gave them the foundation on which the current Windows Speech Recognition (WSR) was built. Also, the main SAPI programmers at L&H formed part of the consortium, including Microsoft, Philips, IBM, and others, in developing the whole concept of Microsoft's Speech Application Program Interface (SAPI). A programmer by the name of Erik Van Grunderbeeck (L&H Belgium) was the lead architect for SAPI 1, 2, and 3. From that point, Microsoft took it over and developed the freely distributed SAPI 4, which Dragon still uses to this day, and subsequently SAPI 5.

As you can see, there was an awful lot going on on different sides of the pond, as well as with in the speech recognition community as a whole both outside and inside the US. Most of it was clouded in a significant aurora of uncertainty. Had Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, along with Gaston Bastiens, not pulled the bonehead maneuvers that they did, L&H would probably still be in existence and Dragon NaturallySpeaking might be better off for it. However, the whole process that crashed that house of cards began before the merger of L&H and Dragon Systems, but didn't come to the front until several months after.

Relative to Max's comments that it doesn't change his mind is perfectly OK and I don't disagree with him. The only thing I'm trying to do is to give everybody an insiders view point, and the whole issue is much more complex and involved than simply what's being presented right now (i.e., what's coming to the front). It's a comedy of errors, the sum of which is definitively greater than the parts that are being made public at this point. That's what everyone needs to understand. Fraud yes, but fraud directed at Dragon Systems, no. Jim and Janet Baker and the rest of us were unfortunately players in the game that we were not aware was going on at the time because our focus wasn't on company management, it was on improving speech recognition via the merger of L&H VoiceXpress and Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Fortunately, current users are benefiting from the positive aspects. That is, what all of the employees of both L&H and Dragon Systems did to try to preserve speech recognition in spite of all the problems and the consequent result. Again, we worked sometimes 24/7 until well past midnight to preserve the dream. If you were to get together all of those who were responsible for doing such and getting DNS 6.0 out the door, they would tell you that it was tough going for a long time, but they would take pride in what they did. That's the positive side of this whole debacle and that's what I want people to remember in addition to not forgetting what the few who committed the fraud did, as well as the people who suffered as a result of the consequences. But pride is one of the reasons why I'm so adamant about helping others learn and understand speech recognition, whether it be on this forum or in terms of individual or corporate training. It's also the reason why you find me often supporting Nuance and/or Dragon NaturallySpeaking despite any problems or negative issues relative to either or both. I'm trying to keep the dream alive whether I get paid for it or not.

I hope Jo Lernout, Pol Hauspie, and Gaston Bastiens get their due. I also hope that the Baker's get long overdue satisfaction and compensation. Nonetheless, the employees who preserved the dream for those of you using Dragon NaturallySpeaking today also get their appropriate and long overdue thanks and recognition.

Chuck

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." -- Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

-------------------------

 

We've harped on this before in this forum, and I don't mean to sidetrack this discussion, but this seems as good a time as any to reiterate: the damage caused by these marketing campaigns lingers today. If I had a dollar for every client who's been refused Dragon because "I used it once in 1997 and it was terrible. I use Siri now and it's not that great" I could afford a new Retina MacBook Pro.

 

Personally, I'm encouraged by the recent shifts at Nuance's marketing. Their involveement of Facebook and Twitter, their wonderful Ask The Dictator videos... if market-leaders (this includes Google and Facebook) can realistically set a user's expectations, people might actually adopt speech computing. Currently, people are so resistant to it due to prior experience with a half-baked product after having impossble-to-meet expectations.

 

</rant>

-------------------------

Eric Wright At work: DNS 12 Pro. At home: DNS 11.5 Pro,  KnowBrainer 2011, and Utter Command by RedStart Systems; Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac

 

Appetite for Dictation - My Blog

Chuck,

Thank you for keeping the dream alive! As an RSI sufferer I really do appreciate it!

-------------------------

Intel Pent D 930 Dual Core Proc 3.0 GHz, 4MB L2 Cache on a Intel Desktop Board D945PVS 800MHz FSB, 4GB 667MHz DDR2 Non-ECC CL5 DIMM (Kit of 2), 150 GB, 10K RPM, 16 MB Cache - WD Raptor SATA HD, Win XP Pro Ver 2002 SP3 32-bit, Andrea USB Soundpod, Sennheiser ME 3, DNS Pro 11.5 using BestMatch III.

 

What specifically are you taking pride in, then?

-------------------------

Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Hi Chuck,

I reread your post and my opinion has not changed. I was referring to Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie and their executive team who are sitting in prison and Goldman Sachs who plainly did not do their jobs. The aftermath is a sad tale and it's very unfortunate that so many innocent people suffered the fallout.

Max Roth
ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

While not conversant with all the salient facts, a quick search on Google this morning returned the following news articles, which will be of interest.

Interesting to note that both men were convicted in Ghent of fraud. In my living memory, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody has suggested that a conviction by a Belgian court is tantamount to a conviction by a kangaroo court in a banana republic.

It must be noted that Mr. Hauspie did not appeal his conviction, so his conviction stands. This morning, I was unable to ascertain whether the appeal of Mr. Lernout was allowed or not, or if it is still subject to legal recourse within the Belgian judicial system.

http://www.flanderstoday.eu/content/lernout-and-hauspie-found-guilty-fraud

 

http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/news/1.867483

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-20/lernout-hauspie-get-prison-sentences-in-belgian-corporate-fraud-case.html

 

-------------------------
DNS 12.0 Professional, Windows 7, Intel Core i7 2630QM, 16GB of RAM. Second-Generation SpeechWare 6-in-1.

 

 

If you have any brains left, don't ever do any deals with people coming from or situated in Belgium.

 

 

 

 

-------------------------

Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Rüdiger,

If you don't understand what I'm talking about from my posts here about L&H, then you don't understand at all.

Sorry. I was part of the team that spent several months with the product management and R&D teams at the old post office (Dragon Systems building) in Newton Massachusetts from March to November of 2001 often up till well after midnight. I take pride in that team and in my participation as part of it. I was the Beta test coordinator for DNS 6.0, the SDK Program Manager and Technical Solutions Project Manager for DNS and also the release engineer for DNS 6.0. Nevertheless, I'm not bragging about my participation, I'm simply saying that I take pride in with the entire team did in terms of the fact that you have DNS to work with today because of what they did. The entire team responsible for DNS 6.0 needs to be recognized, not any one individual. Nevertheless, I'm proud of my contribution to that team effort.

Chuck

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. Ayn Rand

-------------------------

That's lying. You have been bragging about it for as long as almost ten years for the least, and you still are. But it really doesn't matter whether or not you have been there, just because you haven't contributed to it, neither on the programming side, nor on any other side at all, and you certainly haven't contributed particularly to evolving the recognizer, featuring the product, marketing the product, or providing it to the end user in any shape or form. The manufacturers, any of them being in charge after you have been working there, until it came to an end, could have cared less. So let's just call it a day with it, I would suggest.

Rüdiger


-------------------------

Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Rudiger,

Well, at least we know now how low you can go. I guess libel is just part of your general nature.






Would you like references as well? Why don't you start with Lunis. There was one point where I kicked him out of the Beta test for DNS 6.0 for violating the NDA. I'm sure he probably remembers that because it wasn't until Kimberly Mineo, the VP for Marketing at that time, persuaded me to reinstate him.

Chuck

"Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about."  Harry G. Frankfurt

-------------------------

Chuck,

thanks much for putting me straight as far as "libel", much appreciated. Please note that the thread wasn't started initially as "what role did Chuck Runquist play in the merger of Dragon Systems with L&H which turned out as the owners and creators of Dragon Systems (with the most powerful speech recognition system at that time, and still growing strong today, with no influence on it added from the side of L&H) being out of the game", but somehow you managed to make it take that turn just once again.

However, I have always been under the impression that you have been the SDK program manager, and you have made numerous postings in the past in this forum and elsewhere stating that you have been involved directly with the coding, and even more specifically, which I have just come across lately in a really remote place, that you have "spent a considerable part of your life improving continuous speech recognition" (on Sean Wenze's blog in 2004), while your business card says "Technical Project Manager", whatever that is, and I note that you are still the same with Voice Power now. So what's up with it?

Rüdiger




-------------------------

Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

Can't we all just get along?? How about a truce, before this degenerates further into a flame war.

Zig

Zig,

You have my vote on this. I'm finished defending my character and integrity.

Chuck

"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others." - Ayn Rand

-------------------------

Hard as I might try I really can't generate any enthusiasm for the thought that L&H were the saviours of Dragon Systems. There were plenty of other courters at the time and if L&H hadn't fraudulently conned their way into the merger it is simply preposterous to declare that Dragon Systems may not have been around this very day and that we may not be using the software that we are currently using in the form of DNS. Sorry Chuck but for you to take personal plaudits as a saviour of DNS is even more ludicrous. However I should say that I have nothing but the utmost sympathy for all the members of staff in L&H who lost their jobs due to this situation. I am equally sure that there were many extremely talented people among them.

The saviour of Dragon Systems was their speech engine/recogniser which is still based on Jim Baker's contextual mathematical algorithms as we use it today. This speech engine/recogniser exists and existed irrespective of L&H (and SAPI 4 for that matter which is just an interface specification). In fact I really can't see what L&H contributed at all, other than some irrelevant command functionality, to what we know as DNS today. Maybe someone can correct me if I am wrong.

As for Goldman Sachs, something tells me that this may be settled before the court hearing particularly if they are culpable in some way which of course we shouldn't prejudge.

All imho of course.

Lindsay

-------------------------

www.pcbyvoice.com
www.pcbyvoice.co.uk

Nice post Lindsay. I agree 100%.

The damage done by this whole fiasco led to a decade of stagnation in this field. We would have been far better off with Jim and company remaining at the helm, imo. The damage from letting the DNS line stagnate and not providing an accessible SDK to developers can't be overstated. Ironically, this is once again being played out in the mobile space as Nuance is reportedly charging upwards of $1000 for technology that should be free for independent developers and small businesses (which make up the vast majority of apps in the app stores).

Voice recognition has been dying a slow death since the fallout (lack of vision, execution, and marketing) and it's only now with the entrance of new competitors and the rethinking of the PC that it's once again gaining traction. Let's hope for the best.


Max Roth
Dynamic Keyboard One for Naturally Speaking.

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

Lindsay & Max,


First, you're guessing. You weren't there and you don't know what was going on at the time, period.


Let's leave it at that and move on.

Chuck

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley

-------------------------